


i'm just an animal (looking for a home)

by leetheshark



Category: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)
Genre: (written by a trans male author), Emetophobia Mentions, M/M, Murder, Pregnancy, References to Alcohol and Drugs, Trans Male Character, Trans Male Pregnancy, Unhealthy Relationships, Work Relationship with Benefits, people who should not have a baby having a baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:13:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25204519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leetheshark/pseuds/leetheshark
Summary: Victor has something to tell his boss.(Or: a surprise pregnancy forces adjustments to a work relationship with ‘benefits.’)
Relationships: Roman Sionis/Victor Zsasz
Comments: 12
Kudos: 70





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i'm just an animal looking for a home and  
> share the same space for a minute or two  
> and you love me till my heart stops  
> love me till i’m dead
> 
> \- talking heads, [this must be the place](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsccjsW8bSY)

Roman keeps his doors unlocked. He lets his staff come and go through loft as they please, as long as their business is important. If it’s not, they risk firing, thrown pillows, and—if what they’re bothering Roman about is _really_ unnecessary—Victor. Victor’s reasonably sure that, if Roman wanted him hurt, he could find someone else to do it. But he’s also reasonably sure that Roman wouldn’t want him hurt at all. Besides, Victor is the only one of Roman’s employees who’s more than an employee, even if no one else knows.

(Victor is also sure that what he has to tell Roman is important. He could have taken care of it himself, but he wants Roman to know. He thinks Roman would want to know, too.)

Victor shows up in the morning. It must be shortly after breakfast, because instead of sitting alone at the dining room table, Roman is lying on the couch, getting his Botox done. He’s in his best moods in the mornings, when he hasn’t had the chance to have his day ruined yet. Now is probably the best time, if there is a best time. Victor holds his hands behind his back and says, “Boss?”

Roman opens his eyes. His doctor (if he’s even a real doctor) withdraws the needle, and Roman dismisses him with a wave. “Victor! What a nice surprise.” Roman smiles in that fake way he does. Victor only ever sees Roman’s real smiles when they’re… well, intimate. When they laugh between kisses and revel in each other’s company. That only happens when they’re alone. “What is it?”

“I, uh, gotta tell you something.”

“Well? What is it?”

Victor opens his mouth. Then, he closes it again. It shouldn’t be hard to say those two words; Victor only wishes he had a sense of how Roman might react.

Stretching his shoulders, Roman sits upright. “Come on, Victor. Spit it out.”

Victor takes a deep breath. Then, he says, “I’m pregnant.”

Roman’s look turns quizzical. Apparently, the Botox isn’t working. Victor knows that doesn’t matter right now, but he can’t help the instinct to notice everything about Roman. It’s ingrained in him. Then, like it’s finally hitting him what Victor said, Roman’s mouth drops open. “You’re pregnant? I thought you couldn’t get pregnant.”

“I didn’t think I would.”

“You should have told me. We could have used condoms.” Roman shifts into his business voice. “Well, this isn’t something I’ve had to deal with before, but I’m sure we can figure it out. I have connections, obviously. You do want to get rid of it, right?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” A curious look comes over Roman’s eyes. “You don’t _know?_ Oh… Victor.” As the look in his eyes turns to wonder, Roman pats the cushion next to him. “Victor, baby. Come sit with me.”

Roman’s using that tone of voice he uses when he’s playing sweet—like when he decides to spare someone’s life (or more accurately, tell Victor to spare their life), and when he teases and makes Victor desperate in bed before finally giving in—and Victor has no idea where Roman is going with this. Victor sits down on the couch and Roman wraps an arm around his shoulders, holding him close. They’re hip-to-hip, and Victor can smell Roman: his shampoo from what must have been a recent shower, his cologne, the laundry detergent from his robe. Roman waffles between scented and unscented detergent, depending on whether he feels particularly sensitive to smell. That’s one of the things Victor knows about him, that he’s logged away and recalls from time to time. Roman cups Victor’s face with his other hand, rubbing a thumb over the transition between stubble and scarred skin.

“Baby,” Roman says. His voice is a saccharine purr, and Victor still can’t tell if he’s serious. “Victor, beautiful. You want to have a baby with me?”

“I don’t know.” Most people are empty zombies anyway, so Victor doesn’t see any reason to bring another one into the world. But what if it’s like Roman? And if Roman wants it… that’s all Victor needs to decide. “Would you be okay with that?”

“Hmm.” Roman presses a kiss to Victor’s cheek, right where he’s just swiped his thumb. “This may be something we should take some time to think about. How far along are you?”

“I don’t know. I found out last week.”

“Hm. Okay. And you’d be okay with that? Carrying?”

“I think so,” Victor says. Then, he thinks about it. “Yes.”

“Oh, Victor.” Roman presses another kiss to Victor’s cheek, and then the corner of his mouth, and then directly on his lips. With that, all of Victor’s stress leaves him. “You’d do that for me?”

“For you,” Victor affirms.

Roman presses his hand against Victor’s stomach, through his shirt, as if trying to feel what’s inside. Victor could tell him that there’s almost nothing there yet, but he doesn’t, because he wants Roman’s touch. “Beautiful,” Roman whispers. “Beautiful.”  


* * *

  
Victor has known Roman for twenty years, ever since Roman hired him as an extra gun for the Bertinelli massacre. For most of those twenty years, he moved in and out of Roman’s orbit, sometimes signing on for jobs with Roman and sometimes working for other people: Galante, Falcone, a long stint with Cobblepot. He’s been working for Roman exclusively for three months when his job duties—which have, until now, been comprised of removing people from the club when necessary, removing people _entirely_ when necessary, and watching Roman in case anyone makes an attempt on his life (which isn’t the only reason Victor watches Roman, but it’s the one he gets paid to do)—acquire an addition.

Roman’s main job at the club is making sure everyone is having a good time. That usually stops him from drinking too much or taking too many pills, but not always. The first time Victor witnesses it, there’s grumbling among the other employees as to who has to deal with him. When Victor asks one of his fellow bouncers, she explains that someone usually has to help Roman up to the loft and get him into bed, and that it comes with the risk of Roman biting your head off if you don’t support him the right way, or if you let him down too roughly, or for any other minor slight his addled brain can come up with, but at least he never remembers it the next day.

So Victor jumps on the opportunity to volunteer.

It happens every few months, whenever Roman is having a particularly bad day. Particularly bad for Roman is leagues away from particularly bad for just about anyone else. Victor steadies Roman with one of Roman’s arms around his shoulders, and his own wrapped around Roman’s waist. Roman is pretty heavy, but Victor can handle it. Roman also yells at Victor a few times, but Victor can handle that, too.

The other bouncer was right: Roman never remembers it the next day.

Victor stays the night exactly once (before they start sleeping together, anyway). Roman’s apparently had his worst day yet, because he’s more trashed than Victor has ever seen him. As he helps Roman up to the loft, Victor is actually worried about Roman, for the first time that doesn’t involve an outside threat to Roman’s life. He can justify it if protecting Roman’s life is in his job description. So after he peels back the covers of Roman’s bed, lowers Roman’s barely-conscious body into the mattress, and pulls the covers back over him, Victor takes up his post in an armchair in the corner of Roman’s bedroom and does what he gets paid to do: he watches Roman.

Victor sleeps in short bursts, which isn’t much different from his nights at home. Roman stirs every once in a while, and each time, Victor snaps alert to make sure Roman doesn’t choke on his own vomit or have a seizure from whatever he pills he took. It’s mid-afternoon when Roman finally wakes. He blinks open dry, bleary eyes, groans, and starts to peel himself out of bed. Victor has never seen Roman like this: so unpolished, so messily human. His eyeliner is smeared, his hair is a mess, and he’s still wearing his suit from last night. Eventually, his eyes land on Victor. Roman startles, then relaxes when he realizes who it is. “Mr. Zsasz?”

“Yeah, boss,” Victor says. “It’s me.”

“What are you doing here?”

“You got pretty messed up last night. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Oh.” Roman blinks a few times, then wipes the back of his hand over his eyes, smearing his makeup even more. “Thank you. You’re a good employee. Will you get me a glass of water?”

“’Course.” Victor goes into the kitchen, where he looks through the cabinets for a glass. When he finally finds one, he fills it with ice and water from the attachment on the fridge, then brings it back to Roman.

“Thank you,” Roman says, rising out of bed just far enough to take a few gulps of water without spilling too much. Then, he gives Victor a look, like he’s seeing Victor for the first time, and invites Victor to join him for breakfast.

It becomes a regular thing.  


* * *

  
The first time, it’s at the breakfast table. Roman is upset, so—not for the first time—Victor gets up to massage his shoulders, digging hard into that flesh he’s dying to touch bare. This is good, though, touching Roman. It’s as good as Victor thinks he’s going to get, until Roman moans and tips his head back to bore sparkling eyes into Victor’s. Victor’s eyes drop into Roman’s lap, and he gets the hint, dropping under the table to his knees. He isn’t surprised that Roman is a selfish lover. Roman doesn’t offer to reciprocate, and Victor doesn’t mind. It’s probably for the best.

Weeks later, when Roman invites Victor up to the loft at the end of the night, Victor has a pretty good idea of where it’s going. When Roman invites Victor over to the couch, gets him a drink, and asks to see his scars, the pretext is clear as anything.

It’s a good thing that Roman is bold, because Victor isn’t when it comes to matters like this. Victor would have waited and burned for Roman for the rest of his life if Roman let him. Really, he burns either way, his heart racing and skin warm in anticipation as he sheds his button-down under the overhead lights of the loft. It falls off his shoulders to reveal his scar-covered body, and having Roman’s eyes on him feels almost as good as having his mouth on Roman.

Roman doesn’t ask before touching. Victor doesn’t expect him to. His index finger trails from the tallies on Victor’s neck down over his collarbone, then over the slight swell of his pectoral. As far as he can remember, Victor has never been so aroused in his life. He can’t help himself thinking about where else Roman might want to touch.

With a focused look in his eyes, Roman brings his other hand to Victor’s chest. His palms flat against Victor’s ribcage, he runs his thumbs symmetrically across the twin scars under Victor’s pectorals, from his sternum to his sides. “These ones look different.”

“They are,” Victor says.

“Oh,” Roman whispers, as if in realization.

Victor guesses it’s time to tell. “You wanna know what they’re from?”

“I know.”

“How?”

“I’m sure you can guess,” Roman says with a smirk, “that I’ve seen a lot of shirtless men in my time.”

“Oh.” That makes it easy for Victor. The heat in Roman’s eyes is still there, and Victor’s are drawn right into them. “And you still…?”

“What?”

“You still want me?”

Roman smiles. “I already have you.”

“Yeah,” Victor says. “You do.”

“But yes.” Roman leans close, his lips ghosting over Victor’s. “I want you.”

Victor bridges the gap. It’s the first time they’ve kissed. It makes Victor’s head spin, and it would make him want to do anything for Roman, if he didn’t already.  


* * *

  
Roman usually has his staff make his doctor’s appointments, but he doesn’t trust anyone else with this. Being a public figure, he made sure long ago that his primary care doctor knew to be discreet. He calls her for a referral for an OB-GYN who can do the same, then calls that OB-GYN to explain Victor’s condition, ensure that no one there will treat him any differently than their other patients, and reiterate just who Roman is and how difficult he can make their lives if the need arises.

They quickly make him an appointment.

When it comes time, Roman has his driver drop him and Victor off a block away from the doctor’s office, just to be safe. They walk the rest of the way, and when they arrive, they find the waiting room empty. It’s perfect. No one will see them there.

The wait for the examination room is short. Once there, Victor takes his shirt off so that a nurse can check his vital signs—stethoscope to his heart, blood pressure pump around his arm—and although he could ask Roman to leave, Roman seems to want to stay. It’s fine, because Victor wants him to stay too. It’s not like Roman hasn’t seen him shirtless before. As weird as it is being in a doctor’s office with a man who’s, first and foremost, his boss, Victor clings to Roman’s presence as the one familiar thing in this whole situation.

The OB-GYN is a kindly old man named Dr. Bwalya who, from the looks of it, is excited to have his first male patient. He tries to talk to Victor about sports with a twinkle in his chestnut-brown eyes; and though it isn’t a very stimulating conversation, with Victor’s lack of interest in most things mundane, the old man’s chipper demeanor never falters.

Victor has to talk about his medical history: his drug use, which if he keeps the baby, he’ll have to stop; his STIs, of which he’s had a few; his family history, which he knows a little of but doesn’t have anyone to ask for the rest. Roman stays while the doctor examines Victor’s head, arms, and legs and feels over his stomach, and steps out when it comes time for the pelvic exam.

Victor doesn’t have a cycle to judge by, but at the doctor’s best guess, he’s four weeks pregnant.

Roman wants a mini version of himself. Victor wants Roman in every way he can have him.

They decide to keep it.


	2. Chapter 2

Victor doesn’t know what he expected from Roman, but when he thinks about it, it isn’t surprising that a man so protective of his things would be so doting on the man carrying his child. Roman starts trying to buy Victor new clothes right away, and when he tells Victor about it, he hisses with anger about how no one makes pregnancy clothing for men, and how they’ll have to get them custom made.

“I mean, I don’t care about the money, obviously,” Roman says, throwing his hands up while he paces across the living room, having returned from a failed shopping trip. “It’s just fucking disrespectful!”

“Hey.” Victor rises from the couch, where’s he’s been nursing his now-gone morning sickness all afternoon, to meet Roman. He puts his hands on either side of Roman’s neck, massaging until the pained look on Roman’s face relaxes. “It’s okay. I’ve been dealing with shit like that my whole life. I’m used to it.”

“Well you shouldn’t be!”

“Roman. I said it’s okay.” Victor slides his hands down to Roman’s shoulders and squeezes. “Besides, I’m not even showing yet.”

That brings a smile to Roman’s face. Just like that, his mood flips. “Aw, baby. I’m sorry. Did I stress you out? Can I get you something to eat?”

Victor knows, when Roman asks that, that what he means is ‘can my personal chef get you something to eat?’ If Victor’s hungry, he doesn’t have to ask Roman anyway. Roman’s chef knows Victor by now, and that his job now includes feeding a second person. When Roman moved Victor into the loft, shortly after finding out about the pregnancy, he instructed the necessary staff about the situation and told the rest to keep out. Roman’s chef is one of the necessary ones. Roman didn’t have to give a talk about discretion, because almost everyone who works for him already knows what he does to people who cross him.

Victor accepts the offer and sends Roman to ask his chef for macaroni and cheese with whatever toppings they already have on hand. Victor’s been craving it, lately, and all his cravings have been provided for. Living with Roman and being waited on is a far cry from living alone. The only thing that makes Victor uneasy is the uncertainty about whether, once the baby is born, he’ll get to stay. He guesses he should, if they’re going to be raising it together, but they haven’t talked about it. Victor went from an employee with ‘benefits’ to a live-in pregnant partner within weeks. What that means for his relationship with Roman, he has close to no idea. Roman is more touchy than usual, and uses pet names more than Victor’s actual name, but other than that, not much has changed. He still almost never kisses Victor unless they’re about to get intimate. He even offered Victor a choice between his own bed and sharing Roman’s. Victor chose Roman’s, though he sometimes moves to the guest room or the living room couch when he’s feeling sick (or when Roman wants to sleep alone and kicks him out in the middle of the night, only to apologize profusely when he’s fully awake and remembers Victor’s condition).

Roman returns soon with the macaroni and cheese and explains the different kinds of cheese in it and whatever meat is on top, which Victor doesn’t care about as much as he cares about getting it in his mouth as soon as possible. Victor eats on the couch, which Roman never let him do on the rare nights Victor stayed over before. While he does, Roman cuddles close and recounts the other minutiae of his shopping trip: the people he saw (and which ones he hates, which is almost all of them), the other things he bought, the things he considered buying for the baby. He takes the empty bowl back to the kitchen for Victor afterward, which Victor guesses is the most housework Roman’s done in years, if it even counts.

Victor knows Roman. He’s known Roman for twenty years, so he knows Roman only cares about the baby—and about Victor—for the same reason he cares about his statues and shrunken heads and that diamond he’s been trying to get his hands on ever since he and Victor met: they’re his things.

But that doesn’t mean Victor can’t enjoy the attention while it lasts.  


* * *

  
Roman rolls over in bed to wrap his arms around an already-awake Victor, who’s spent the last ten minutes scrolling through the Gotham news on his phone for anything that might interest Roman. He’s still giving Roman daily briefings over breakfast, even when Roman seems more interested in talking about the pregnancy than anything else.

Victor puts his phone back down on the nightstand. “Morning, boss.”

“You’re glowing,” Roman says, in lieu of greeting. “I wish my skin looked like yours.”

Victor’s face splits into a grin. “You want the scars too?”

Roman shudders. “Ugh. No. They’re beautiful on you. But they wouldn’t suit me.”

“You’d look nice with a few,” Victor says. “You look nice anyway.”

“I know.” Roman smiles softly. “Thank you.”

Roman peels the covers back, then slides Victor’s shirt up over the growing swell of Victor’s stomach. Victor’s scars stretch over it, decorating the bump with those familiar raised lines that Roman loves to feel under his hands. He moves a hand over it, making Victor shiver with the touch. “Beautiful,” Roman whispers. “And mine.”

“I’m yours, too,” Victor says.

Roman presses an unexpected kiss to Victor’s cheek. “Of course you are.”  


* * *

  
For Victor’s next OB-GYN visit, Roman decides to give up the pretense with his driver, having him stop right in front of the office instead of dropping them off a block away. It’ll be obvious eventually—while Victor’s already showing, it’s not yet visible through his clothes—and until then, the building has so many other offices that it would be impossible to know which one Roman and Victor are there for. Besides, Roman insists that he wouldn’t want to make his pregnant partner walk any more than he absolutely has to.

It’s after the visit—and after the first ultrasound, which makes Roman hold back tears, an expression on him that Victor knows well—that Victor finally asks the question that’s been eating at him ever since he moved in with Roman. He’s curled up on the couch with an Italian sub sandwich from the deli down the street while Roman goes over paperwork for a new business arrangement. Whenever Victor used to interrupt Roman, Roman reprimanded him (but never as severely as he reprimanded anyone else who did the same). Now, Roman lets Victor do just about anything. “Hey, boss.”

“Yes, Victor?”

“I gotta ask you something.”

Roman puts his paperwork back down on the coffee table he’s had moved into the living room, just so he could work while sitting with Victor on the couch. “What is it?”

“Are we together?”

Roman’s brow furrows. “What do you mean?”

Victor shrugs and takes a few more bites of his sandwich while he thinks of what to say. “Are we still just fucking, or are things different now? I mean, I don’t care that much. Just wanna know.”

Roman scoots toward Victor and wraps his arms around Victor’s waist. Victor has to maneuver his sandwich out of the way. He was expecting a serious conversation, not Roman cuddling up to him and playing sweet again, but he guesses this is fine too. He likes the affection just as much as he always has. “Victor,” Roman says, like Victor is being unreasonable. “You’re pregnant with my child. Of course things are different now.”  


* * *

  
Victor loves watching Roman fly off the handle. Second only to his violent tendencies, Roman’s temper is Victor’s favorite thing about him. When he and some of Galante’s other goons told Roman, shortly after the massacre, that they hadn’t been able to find the diamond, Victor watched Roman destroy half of his own loft and decided that he wouldn’t mind making his home in the eye of that storm.

When Roman develops even more of a hair trigger because of the pregnancy, Victor couldn’t be more thrilled. Roman goes off on his driver when he stops too short with Victor in the car (and the driver still doesn’t know Victor’s pregnant, so Roman’s newfound protectiveness is a complete mystery to him); he yells at a Bed Bath & Beyond employee when a certain well-recommended pregnancy body pillow isn’t in stock; he gets snappy in the club with even the people he hates the least.

Victor watches him through all of that and cackles like he always does, because all of those people should know that Roman is better than them. They should know that they’re nothing compared to Roman’s force of nature. He’s like a lioness protecting her family and it’s the first time that Victor isn’t just protecting Roman; Roman is trying to protect Victor too. Even though none of Roman’s yelling actually accomplishes anything—the driver keeps driving the same, the body pillow doesn’t magically appear, the clubbers keep being, well, clubbers—Victor loves that it’s all for him.  


* * *

  
It’s a few months in when Victor takes to wearing Roman’s clothes. Most of his own were a little too big for him in the first place, so they lasted a while, but he’s outgrown them now. He stands in front of the floor-length mirror in the bedroom while he buttons one of Roman’s shirts over his growing stomach, examining how it fits him in the chest and shoulders. It’s not any worse than some of his own clothes. Suddenly, Roman comes behind him, wrapping his arms around Victor’s midsection, over the bump. He presses a kiss into Victor’s neck. “You look so handsome in my clothes,” he says. “Are you sure you’re still okay with working?”

“I guess so.” Victor still thinks he can do just about anything he did before. The only problem is his appearance. “You think people’ll notice?”

“I don’t think so. Not yet, anyway. Plenty of people know you moved in with me.” Roman smiles. “For all they know, I’m just feeding you better.”

“You are,” Victor says, grinning back in the mirror. Roman reaches up to tilt Victor’s chin to the side and kiss his lips.

“Are we ever going to tell people?” Roman asks.

“Do you want to?”

Roman’s cool blue eyes are serious. “Yes.”

“Roman,” Victor says. He kisses Roman’s lips again to distract him from the news. “’S not a good idea.”

Roman frowns. “Why not?”

“You know people are gonna go crazy about it. Besides, it won’t hit you like it’ll hit me. Except for how people are only scared of you ‘cause of me. If they don’t respect me, they don’t respect you.”

“You can still peel their faces off,” Roman says. There’s a hiss in his voice. “You can still be pregnant and peel their faces off. Then they’ll respect you.”

“Can’t do that to everyone.”

“It’s not fucking fair!” Roman drops his face into the crook of Victor’s neck. His whole body heaves with a sigh. “I just want to show you off! You’re beautiful! I wish people could fucking understand that!”  


* * *

  
They reach a compromise.

Victor stops going into the club when he’s big enough that there’s no question about why. That doesn’t mean he can’t keep doing the other parts of his job.

“They say talking’s good for the baby,” Victor drawls, walking in circles around the man he has tied up by the ankles while he swings the free end of the rope around and around. “You think they’d like to hear you scream?”

“It must be awfully frightening,” Roman pipes up, from just far enough away that he won’t get any blood on his clothes. “You should really be more considerate! We’re expecting, for God’s sake!”

The man doesn’t stop screaming.  


* * *

  
Victor gets his body pillow, eventually. He makes do with a slightly less expensive one until Bed Bath & Beyond restocks the one Roman wanted for him. The difference is miniscule, but to Victor’s sleep-deprived mind and over-sensitive body, it helps. This far along, sleep is more difficult than it’s ever been, even including some of Victor’s worst nights before all this. He’s never been so reliant on sleep, drinking coffee and taking caffeine pills when he really can’t get through the day, but he can’t do that anymore (he’s allowed caffeine, but not _that_ much). So he takes what sleep he can get. Now, he’s curled up in Roman’s bed inside his C-shaped body pillow, which goes under his head, around his back, and between his thighs. The edges of the pillow meet in the front, where Victor wraps his arms around it and rests his bump. Roman is downstairs working the club, and Victor can hear the music in the distance as he drifts in and out of sleep. Roman offered to have the loft soundproofed—he’s never needed to before, since he’s always in the club when it’s open—but Victor declined on the basis that the faraway sounds help him sleep. He’s never lived anywhere that was quiet at night.

Victor sleeps and wakes in bursts. He listens to the music downstairs, and then blinks, and when he opens his eyes he can hear the bedroom door opening and a distinct lack of sound from the club. He blinks again—the bathroom sink is running. Again—the bed is dipping down behind him and Roman is crawling across it. Roman rests his head on the body pillow behind Victor’s, then reaches around it to settle his hand over Victor’s waist, which is softer now than it’s ever been. “Ugh,” he whispers, low enough not to wake Victor if he were fully asleep. “You wouldn’t _believe_ what happened tonight…”

Victor closes his eyes. When he opens them again, he has no way of knowing whether seconds or minutes have passed, but Roman is still rambling. “…I mean, they shouldn’t be paying attention to _Harley Quinn_ —” he says, with malice dripping from her name. “—they should be paying attention to me! It’s my fucking club! I give them free drinks and this is how they repay me?” Roman halts suddenly, as if realizing he’s getting too loud, and drops his voice back to a whisper. “Why is everything so hard? Ugh, Victor. You’re the only good thing I have.” He sighs, and Victor can feel it on the back of his neck. “Fuck, I love you.”

Victor stirs. “You love me?”

“Aw, sweetheart. Were you pretending to be asleep?”

“No,” Victor slurs. “Just tired.”

“Get some rest.” Roman presses a soft kiss to Victor’s neck. “And yes. I love you.”

“You don’t mean that,” Victor says.

“Get some sleep. That’s what’s important.”

Victor’s too tired to argue. He goes back to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Even after everything he and Victor have been through so far, Roman is still Roman.

When Victor spends mornings hunched over the toilet, Roman refuses to be anywhere on the same side of the loft. It doesn’t happen as often, now that he’s in the homestretch, but it still happens. Roman still gets moody, and still gets annoyed when his sleep is interrupted, like when Victor has to get out of bed every hour or two to use the bathroom. When Roman doesn’t want to kick Victor out of bed, he sometimes goes to sleep in the guest bedroom himself.

The guest bedroom still has a bed in it, for now. It also has a crib and mountains of baby miscellanea cluttered around. Roman hates clutter, but not as much as he likes buying things. They’re working on converting it into a nursery, which Roman’s taken it upon himself to decorate. He keeps the paint—off-white with a deep red floral pattern and a matching red accent wall behind the bedframe—and decides the rest of the décor has to match.

“They’re not really baby colors,” Victor says, while Roman searches the bedding aisle at Babies ‘R’ Us for anything black or red. Victor hasn’t been out and about in Gotham City lately. When he wants to get out of the loft, he and Roman go to the next town over. It isn’t as big as Gotham, but it has a Babies ‘R’ Us and a few restaurants the two of them can agree on, so they end up going a few times a week.

“Well, it should match our décor,” Roman says.

“Babies like bright colors.” Victor picks up a set of pink sheets and presents it for Roman’s judgment. “Pink’s kind of like red. Right?”

“Hmm.” Roman takes the sheets and examines them, pinching them between his fingers to feel the texture. “This could work. It wouldn’t look _terrible_ with the wall color.” He tosses the sheets into their cart, next to a futuristic-looking baby monitor and a few candy bars Victor grabbed by the registers. They move on to the toy section next. Roman throws things into the cart seemingly at random and declines other things with just as little reason. He says he wants his baby to have the best upbringing possible. They get activity books, teethers, rattles, a playmat. In the stuffed animal section, Victor picks out a purple seahorse and Roman chooses a fluffy white sheep.

With Roman looking at other animals a few feet away, Victor finds a basket of plush raccoons and picks one up. Two shiny black eyes stare at him through the mask-like pattern on its face. “Hey, Roman. How about this?”

Roman turns to look, then recoils. “Ew. No. I hate raccoons.”

Victor holds it up and points the face toward Roman. “It’s cute.”

“I don’t want to teach our child to play with animals that eat _trash.”_

Victor shrugs and puts the raccoon back. “There another reason you don’t like them?”

“How’d you know that?”

“Just seems like it. You don’t have to tell me.”

“Of course I don’t have to.” Roman clams up. Victor thinks he’s going to leave it at that, but after a moment, he says, “I was bitten by one when I was a child.”

“Oh.”

“I had to get rabies shots.” Roman shudders. “It was awful.”

“Sorry,” Victor says. He isn’t sure if he means ‘sorry to hear that’ or ‘sorry I asked.’ It might be a mix of both. He goes back to wandering among the stuffed animals. As he examines different ones—teddy bears, elephants, tigers—he thinks about how he knows next to nothing about Roman’s childhood. Even now, he kind of feels like it’s none of his business. Roman’s his employer, and maybe his boyfriend or something like that, but eight months of living together don’t stand up to twenty years of distance.  


* * *

  
Roman’s growing empire still needs running, which means when a business meeting comes up across town, Roman has no choice but to go. For obvious reasons, Victor can’t go with him. For equally obvious reasons, Victor can’t stay home alone.

That leaves Roman in the position of finding someone he can trust to stay with Victor for the day, in case anything goes wrong. Roman doesn’t trust many people. Only one of his employees comes to mind.

Roman recruits his songbird.

Victor is, surprisingly, okay with this. It’s not because he’s suddenly companionable.

Victor is pretty sure Roman doesn’t want to fuck Dinah Lance (she’s, well, a woman), but he knows Roman likes her in that Roman-esque way where he thinks she can do no wrong. From what little Victor knows about Dinah Lance, he’s also pretty sure she doesn’t want to fuck Roman (Roman is, well, a man), but Roman still gives her attention, and Victor still hates it.

So this arrangement means that Victor can gloat. He’s the one who has Roman’s attention now.

Roman leaves at 8:00 in the morning. It’s disgustingly early for him. He kisses a drowsy Victor goodbye before leaving him alone, as promised, with Lance.

Hours later, when Victor finally crawls out of bed, he pads into the dining room to find Dinah at the table. She’s sitting in Roman’s usual spot, scrolling on her phone in front of a coffee and a plate of snacks. Victor plops down in his own usual spot—really, slowly lowers himself down, because he’s at the point where it’s necessary—and swipes a cheese cube off of Dinah’s plate before popping it into his mouth. “Boss tell you not to tell?” he asks, more to try and intimidate her than anything else. He already knows the answer.

Dinah doesn’t know the intricacies of Roman’s business. That doesn’t mean she can’t be scared of Victor.

(If you ask Dinah, ‘scared’ is a strong word. ‘Creeped out’ would be more accurate.)

Dinah sighs and puts her phone on the table, face down. “Listen, Zsasz. I don’t care what’s going on between you and Mr. S., and I don’t care that you’re… well, you know. So you know I’m not gonna tell anyone. I’m just here to get my paycheck and go. Got it?”

Victor grins in a way that usually makes his victims squirm. “And here I was thinking you were babysitting me out of the kindness of your heart. What happens if I go into labor?”

“Then I call the boss and get the hell out of dodge,” Dinah says. “Do I look like a doctor to you?”

Victor just shrugs.

He doesn’t end up going into labor. Dinah stays all day and mostly ignores Victor, while Victor mostly ignores her, except for when she asks questions like ‘where’s the guest room TV remote?’ and ‘will Mr. S. mind if I have some of this whiskey?,’ to which the answers are ‘top drawer of the nightstand’ and ‘fuck if I know, knock yourself out.’ Dinah also smokes out of the window in the guest bedroom and thinks Victor doesn’t notice. Victor notices, because on the occasional night he stayed over before the pregnancy, he used to do the exact same thing.  


* * *

  
It starts when Roman is in the club.

Roman hasn’t been spending as much time there lately, now that Victor’s due date is approaching fast, but he still likes to make sure everything is in order before opening for the night. He never leaves Victor alone for more than half an hour at a time, and he always has his phone on him.

Victor’s in the kitchen, getting himself a glass of water, when he starts to feel pain in his lower back. There’s nothing unusual about that. Victor’s been getting new pains in new parts of his body nearly every day—especially in his back, considering the weight he’s carrying on his front. He’s nowhere near the point where he usually takes painkillers, so he ignores it and finishes pouring his water. He’s halfway through chugging it when the pain moves to his lower abdomen. In the next few minutes, it gets strong enough that Victor can’t ignore it anymore. _Shit._ He sets down his glass down on the kitchen island so he doesn’t drop it, then goes to lie down on the couch and call Roman.

Roman picks up right away. “Victor? Is something wrong?”

“I think you should get up here.”

Roman hangs up the phone before Victor’s finished speaking and bursts into the loft within minutes to find Victor on the couch. “Are you going into labor?”

“Not sure,” Victor says. “Contractions.” Dr. Bwalya gave them the run-down on labor. He said Victor’s contractions might start hours or even days before he’s ready to go to the hospital.

At first, they’re not any worse than the cramps Victor used to get. They’re far enough apart that Victor can get up and walk around in between. He finishes his water from earlier and takes some Tylenol, even though what he really wants is the Percocet Roman keeps in the bathroom, left over from a back injury years ago, which he didn’t ask Dr. Bwalya about for obvious reasons but knows he’s probably not supposed to take without supervision. Victor wouldn’t care if he weren’t taking drugs for two.

Over the next couple of hours, they get worse. Victor settles in on the couch for the long-haul, leaving space by his head for Roman to sit with him. Roman gets him a blanket and some pillows from the bedroom, because they’re more comfortable than the decorative couch pillows. He has his chef make a spread of food that Victor doesn’t actually want, so Roman ends up eating instead. Victor knows pain. He knows it as well as he knows his own body, but he’s never felt anything like this. He almost blacks out. When it subsides enough that he can speak again, he pants, “Roman, shit.”

“It hurts?”

“Yeah, it fuckin’ hurts.” Victor gropes for Roman’s hand, threading their fingers together once he finds it. Roman sits with him until the next contraction comes and talks with Dr. Bwalya on the phone about when to bring Victor to the hospital. When it does come, Victor squeezes Roman’s hand almost hard enough to break bone. Roman yelps and drops the phone. As soon as Victor lets go, Roman snatches his hand away and gets Victor a baby toy to hold onto instead.

It’s past midnight when they head for the hospital, with a promise from Dr. Bwalya to meet them there. The drive to Gotham General isn’t long. Victor hasn’t been to a real hospital since Arkham, if it even counts. He ends up getting plopped down into a wheelchair and taken to L&D, with Roman following close behind, and given a blue gown, a bed, and an uncomfortably invasive examination.

It’s fine. Victor knows it’s not the worst to come, and he knowingly signed up for all of it.

Roman knowingly signed up for all of it, too, but the more time he spends with Victor in the hospital, the jumpier he gets. Victor can tell Roman wants to snap at everyone who comes into the room, even though he holds back for Victor’s sake. It’s the most restrained Victor’s ever seen him. It’s also the most nervous Victor’s ever seen him. Something’s changing, like Roman’s only now realizing what the past nine months have meant. Like he was getting so used to doting on Victor and having Victor rely on him that he forgot it wouldn’t last forever—that there was a finish line, an end goal, and that their comfortable little experiment in domestic life would become something completely different.

(Not that it was comfortable for Victor, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy it too. He did it for a reason, after all.)

“You remember when you said you loved me?” Victor asks. His contractions are minutes apart, now. Roman’s just gotten back from the vending machine downstairs, with stress snacks that Victor’s never seen him eat before. Something is changing for sure.

“When?”

“Doesn’t matter. You gonna keep me around once the baby’s out?”

Roman doesn’t answer right away. He puts his half-eaten candy bar down on the table beside Victor’s bed, then puts his hand on Victor’s arm. “Of course I am,” he says. “You’ll always be mine. You’re special to me.”

“I’m gonna keep living with you?”

“Well I’m not raising this baby on my _own.”_

Roman hired a nanny already. Victor wouldn’t be surprised if Roman didn’t want to raise the baby at all. So he knows that’s not really why Roman wants him to stay. Roman says sweet things every day; they don’t mean anything. But Roman only ever does what he wants, so if Roman wants Victor to stay when he’s just Victor, no baby in him, then _that_ means something.

Victor’s next contraction wrenches the smile right off his face.

What’s a guy have to do to get some fucking painkillers around here?

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [pumpkin](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27194552) by [leetheshark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leetheshark/pseuds/leetheshark)




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